In Sickness and in Health
by embrace-your-inner-dork
Summary: Jennyanydots isn't used to being wrong, lost, or scared. But when a tom near and dear to her heart becomes suddenly and violently ill, and she can't fix it... what else is there?


A/N: Okay, so after many years in the fandom, I'm finally brave enough to write a CATS fic. I actually came up with a sort of challenge (take any line from the show and write a story from there), and one line would not leave me alone, so I really just sort of went with it. I never explicitly mention the names of either main character, but it should be quite obvious once you read it. :D So, uhm, here I go.

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This wasn't supposed to happen.

He was supposed to have jauntily strolled into the junkyard—but instead he had been stumbling and shivering, rushed in by a half-dozen others.

Bast, it hadn't even _looked_ like him.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

She shouldn't be the one taking care of him—she took care of the kittens. The adults were Jellylorum's job. This shouldn't be her problem.

But it was _him_, so she had to do it.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

It didn't even make sense. He was healthy—he was _always_ healthy. Sickness didn't reach class that high. He was still in his prime; he would last out his time.

He'd said that himself.

Yes, he'd said it, which made it truth. He had to make it; he just _had_ to. He'd be breaking his word otherwise—and a gentlecat _never_ goes back on his word.

And besides, it wasn't right for the very quintessence of heartiness and high society to be curled up in a ball, shaking like a defenseless kitten.

She had been working her tail off for what seemed like ages, and in reality had probably been a straight day. About half of the food she had was going into the effort—and about half of it was violently coming right back up. He couldn't eat, he wouldn't drink, and damned if any of her medicines had worked yet. She'd tried just about every remedy she'd ever heard of on him, half out of frenzy.

So, what was the matter? Why wasn't he improving?

She had used so many of her resources on this, and yet nothing was happening. She was supposed to have started teaching a young group of crickets tonight, but she had cancelled on them to take care of him. And nothing was happening. But something had to happen, and soon. Things couldn't keep going like this; they shouldn't; they wouldn't. She wouldn't let them.

He said he would last out his time, and blast it, that's _just_ what he was going to do, no matter how far to the contrary things looked.

He was not allowed to die. Plain and simple.

Nothing fit together at all. He was supposed to be high above the rest of them in everything, and certainly above illness. And she was supposed to be able to care for those in the tribe. She was supposed to have had something like this taken care of hours ago. Now—she didn't even know how long she'd been awake, and she started seeing double, and she'd done all she could think to do, and _nothing worked_.

But it had to work; something had to work. He wasn't allowed to die, and she wasn't allowed to let him die. And for some reason, a vow she had heard her humans take came to her mind; it had been some sort of official mating ceremony, she'd guessed. They had sworn to stay with each other for richer or poorer, to have and to hold, to honour and cherish…in sickness and in health, until death do them part.

But, she thought, death would not do them part. She would not tolerate it. But in sickness and in health…she could deal with that. That's what she was doing right now, wasn't she? And she wasn't going to fail. Because he wasn't allowed to die. They depended on each other, and if one went down…

But they wouldn't. He'd promised.

Her humans' vow kept replaying in her head, only reminding her to take her task all the more seriously—and reminding her that she might have her own mating ceremony to look forward to, once he was better. Because he _would_ be better, and very soon—even if he _looked_ worse. There were no two ways about it. She still didn't know how, but it would happen, mark her words.

Then it hit her.

The vows.

_Her humans._

They were veterinarians, she remembered. They could help. They could find out the problem. She wouldn't fail, because she wouldn't do it. She wouldn't fail, because _he wouldn't die. _

He could keep his promise.

She bounded to her humans' cottage. Every second counted. Mewing and scratching at the door did quite enough to get the attention of Celia, her human queen. Almost as soon as Celia had opened the door to let her Marmalade in—for the humans knew her as Marmalade—the woman had known to follow the cat, though she wasn't quite sure _how_ she'd known.

She stopped at her little corner of the junkyard, right next to him, and looked up at Celia pleadingly, almost as if telling her that she was the last hope. She nuzzled him softly, almost as a goodbye, then watched as Celia gingerly picked up the cat the humans knew as Dapper. This had to work; it just _had_ to. And it was _going_ to. And he would live, and he would keep his promise.

And then maybe he—they—would make another promise.


End file.
